Janie was a player; the second part

Yes, Janie liked to play.  But more than that, she invented her own game, involving the two of us!

While Janie greatly enjoyed playing with toys such as the tug toy, KONG and tire, her favorite game needed only one item…me.

Janie and me

The game started out low-key.  Janie went to one of our two area rugs in the living room, crouched down, her brindled butt in the air, pinned me with her eyes and growled.  I stared back at her, crouched slightly, walked forward slowly towards her, doing my own version of the growl.  As I got closer, she crouched lower, then leaped up and raced across the room to the other rug.  She crouched there, waiting for me to advance, growling.  When I was almost there, she shot across the living room, back to the first rug.  Crouch and repeat.  Crouch, repeat; on and on.

The first addition to the game came when, instead of racing back to the first rug, Janie took off toward the dining room, tore around the table, charged to the second rug and crouched there, ready for me to catch up.  Then back to the first rug.  To the second rug.  Around the table at breakneck speed, claws scrabbling on the hardwood floor.  (Thank goodness we hadn’t had the floors resurfaced!)  She went on like that for ages, with me chasing her and growling as I went, unless while flying around the table, she would glance out the window and spot a dog.  She’d stop and begin to fixate on the dog.  I’d run up to her, run her away from the window and the game continued.

Trust me, this was great exercise…at least for me!  Janie would have a look of immense joy in her dark eyes as she ran.  I would laugh as I ran.  Eventually I would give up and we’d lie on the rug together, resting and recovering.

I thought those were all the permutations, but Janie had another twist up her proverbial sleeve and she was ready to ratchet things up a bit.  One day, after stops at both rugs and the mad dash around the table, Janie, flattened to the floor as she ran, slid around the corner into the hallway, charged up the steps to the second floor and went to ground on the rug in our older daughter’s room.  She waited with great anticipation until I got there, then took her show at high speed around the hallway, past the other bedroom doors and the bathroom door, then finally, in great leaps, back down the stairs.  She went so fast that despite putting on the brakes and going into reverse, she barely came to a stop before running headlong into the front door.  This was, by the way, her typical method of coming downstairs in the mornings, so you didn’t want to be in the way when she came down.  I followed at a slightly slower, more careful, pace and hitting more of the stairs!!

We’ve since had a few more rescue dogs and I imagine that because of their backgrounds, some of them never learned to play.  But despite the neglect Janie went through, her brain and personality were hardwired for fun and she took it whenever she could, preferably with a willing human.  Play hard, rest hard.

Recovery time!